Overview

You don’t have to wait for the Galaxy Note 8 for a flagship phablet from Samsung in 2017, as the Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus is here with a mammoth 6.2-inch screen.

That screen is pin sharp at 1440 x 2960 – a QHD+ resolution that’s higher than any phone this side of the Sony Xperia XZ Premium. Even across the 6.2-inch expanse of the display it still comes in at 529 pixels per inch.

And visual are more than just sharp, they’re also bright and vibrant, thanks to the use of Super AMOLED technology, and the screen supports mobile HDR too, so if you watch an HDR video the image will look even better.

Plus, the Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus has an 18.5:9 aspect ratio, which means it’s super widescreen and along with the size allows you to comfortably run two apps side by side.

The screen looks great as well. It has curved edges and just the tiniest sliver of bezel above and below. The front is over 80% screen in fact, and that’s allowed Samsung to keep the overall dimensions surprisingly small at 159.5 x 73.4 x 8.1mm. Make no mistake, this is a big phone, but it’s not the almost tablet sized device you might be expecting.

It’s an attractive phone too. Not just because of that all-screen front, but also because of the glass back and slim metal frame. But it’s stronger than it looks, with IP68 certification meaning it’s dust proof and water resistant to a depth of 1.5 metres for up to 30 minutes.

And of course there’s more power than you’ll know what to do with, thanks to a meaty 4GB of RAM and a brand new Exynos 8895 processor. This is Samsung’s top-tier in-house chip and it has four cores clocked at 2.3GHz and four running at 1.7GHz, which it can switch between depending on how much oomph it needs.

The rear camera is the same 12MP one as we saw on the Galaxy S7 – which is fine, because that’s still one of the best smartphone snappers on the planet, and new modes and software improvements make it even better here. The front-facing camera meanwhile is a powerful 8MP one, for highly detailed selfies.

The Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus also comes with a new AI assistant called Bixby, which offers an alternative to the also-included Google Assistant. There’s a dedicated hardware button to launch it and Samsung promises that Bixby will get more powerful and useful over time.

Plus, as a high-tech phone of the future the Galaxy S8 Plus has not just a fingerprint scanner, but also an iris scanner and facial recognition, so you have a wealth of ways to keep it secure.

With powered up Bluetooth 5.0 too, which is faster and longer range than previous Bluetooth versions, along with a generous 64GB of storage, a microSD card slot and a massive 3,500mAh battery (which supports both fast and wireless charging) there’s almost nothing this phone doesn’t have and can’t do.